TV
The trend is towards high-end documentaries
Scene from the documentary “Time – a journey through the millennia”. The ZDF series is an ambitious German-Chinese co-production. Photo
© Jan Prillwitz/ZDF/dpa
World stars lend their faces or voices, camera movements are extremely complex: the TV industry is looking for documentaries with a kick. This means that budgets have to grow significantly. This cannot be managed individually.
Blue whales with implanted high-tech cameras. Or models who go on a world tour. In the French Documentary filmmakers show their best work in La Rochelle. The international documentary industry is currently meeting there at the “Sunny Side of the Doc”.
The focus is on the trend towards mega-productions worth millions. But the need to work together internationally to manage the multi-million dollar budgets is also a huge issue. The TV marketplace begins on Monday and runs until Thursday.
An example of one of these high-quality productions is “Time – a journey through the millennia”. The 80-minute German-Chinese co-production is said to have cost 1.2 million euros. It is intended to show the audience “the importance of time for human civilization and way of life” with spectacular images and unusual stories.
Of murderers who freeze time
Jens Monath, the ZDF editor responsible, speaks of “a challenging project”: “How do you make time visible for television?” Remarkable stories have been found for this, such as “that of a murderer who froze time.” The documentary will be shown on Arte at the end of August and on ZDF in November.
“The Americas” is even more elaborate: From the perspective of a blue whale, a school of these gigantic mammals is accompanied as they dive into the depths of the ocean. These are the first impressive excerpts from the most expensive nature documentary that the US broadcaster NBC Universal has ever made in collaboration with the BBC.
Hollywood star Tom Hanks will be appearing as a narrator for the first time in the multi-million dollar project. The ten-part series will certainly be shown here next year. “The Americas” and “Die Zeit” are certainly in vogue.
This is also demonstrated by “Sunny Side of the Doc”. Around 2,000 people in charge of broadcasters and production companies from more than 60 countries are currently at the most important marketplace for documentaries in La Rochelle to present or initiate new projects.
One million euros per hour
“There are mega-productions that cost over a million euros per hour,” says Jens Richter, international managing director at the production company Fremantle. “When we made ‘Planet Sex with Cara Delevingne’, it was even more – with a star and a team that travels all over the world.”
World-class model Delevingne traveled around the globe in the six-part documentary series. She explored how sexuality is dealt with in different cultures and how much cultural ideas shape and influence our image of gender. It was worth it for the London company: the series was sold in over 100 TV markets. In Germany, RTL+ streamed it.
Industry booming, but difficult financial situation
However, even though the genre is booming, there is less and less money available for the actors. “The financial situation is becoming increasingly difficult,” says Mathieu Béjot, head of the trade fair, describing the situation. “You have to find international partners; larger, ambitious projects are simply not feasible in your own market,” he says in an interview with dpa.
German public broadcasters in particular have become a “rock in the surf”, as the editor-in-chief of “Terra X”, Friederike Haedecke, puts it. The Mainz-based broadcaster, together with the BBC and France Télévisions, will now continue the successful series “Walking with Dinosaurs” after 25 years.
Elina Kewitz is also pleased that “well-made documentaries from Germany” are always popular around the world. With her distribution company “New Docs” she sold films to Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, Canada and the Middle East during the trade fair “Europe is glowing – How heat waves are changing our lives”.